Apex Legends season 6 trailer previews Rampart’s abilities, crafting

With the release of the gameplay trailer for Apex Legends season six: Boosted today, fans finally got official, in-game looks at Rampart and her abilities, as well as the new crafting system that Respawn is introducing.

We’ve seen plenty of teasers for Rampart and her abilities from both the season six reveal trailer and from her Stories from the Outlands video, but today’s season six gameplay trailer gives us our first look at what a couple of those abilities look like in-game. And, as all of those previous trailers suggested, Rampart won’t be the quiet, unassuming type.

First, and most notably, there’s Sheila, the giant gun that Rampart carries around with her at all times and will in all probability be her ultimate ability. In addition to being able to mount the gun on any available flat surface and spray away at enemies with glee, she also uses it in her finishers, which includes at least one reference that wrestling fans will get a kick out of. 

We also got to see Rampart’s tactical ability in action, her shield. We’ve seen the wall before and how it can stop incoming bullets, while also allowing you to shoot through it while the wall theoretically amplifies your damage. This is the first time we’ve seen the animation for Rampart actually deploying the wall, however. It looks like it takes a couple of seconds to actually become fully functional.

The fever dream of Rampart’s ultimate used in combination with her shield possibly amping its damage is showed off in the trailer, but the long set-up time for the shield to actually deploy coupled with the inevitable animation for putting Sheila down means that strategy will need to be more of a carefully thought-out tactic rather than something you can just throw down in an emergency, like Gibraltar’s dome shield.

Apex fans also got their first in-game look at crafting, which will allow players to create new shields, weapons, attachments, and other items. The trailer shows off “materials,” a sort of currency that drops in pods around the map that players can gather. Players can subsequently use these materials at Replicator stations to create what they want from the Replicator station’s options. 

Interestingly, it looks like the Replicator stations won’t simply allow a player to craft whatever loot they want, but have different options labeled “Daily,” “Weekly,” and “Permanent.” So, if you’d like to craft a Devotion with a Turbocharger hop-up and an Extended Energy Magazine, all of which are featured on the Replicator station’s screen in the trailer, all you’ll need to do is collect enough materials to buy one from the Replicator station and hope that those things all happen to be on offer at the station on any given day.

Big changes are coming in Apex season six. If you want to see how much Rampart shakes up the Apex meta, or you’re just excited about the prospect of creating new guns to use on the fly, you can see for yourself when the new season is released on Aug. 18.